On Friday, KSAT captured video of police peeling of a paper license plate off of a stolen truck after it crashed into a retirement home on Babcock Road and St. Cloud Street. That incident shed light on a recurring theme in the auto crime world. The state, car dealerships and police are still working together to stop criminals from hiding behind paper license plates.
"We ran the VIN number and found that the vehicle had been stolen. Clearly, this was most likely an attempt by the person who took the vehicle to try to conceal the fact that it was stolen," said Sgt. Jesse Salame, with the San Antonio Police Department.
Salame said it's a common tactic, but it's become harder for thieves to do.
"Before, a lot of these paper tags were recycled among dealerships, so you might have one tag that was associated with numerous vehicles. It was a nightmare," Salame said.
However, several years ago the state Department of Motor Vehicles scrapped an outdated system and reformatted the paper tags.
The older version of the paper license plates only had an expiration date and a place to hand write a VIN number. The new ones are computer printed. They have the license number, the expiration date and the entire VIN number listed, plus they're electronically connected to one car only.
"They can scan it and they can tell right then, and it's even color specific because we have to put the color of the car," said Howard Kelley, who is in charge of the license plates at Ancira Chevrolet.
Kelley explained that law enforcement can even scan or type in the license number while on the road to see if the car matches the description in the system.
"If it says white and they pull it over on a black truck, obviously, there's something wrong somewhere," Kelley said.
Salame said the public can help them out by calling police if they see an older paper license plate that is partially handwritten, or even a newer looking tag that's taped over a real license plate. Those are both indicators the car might be stolen.